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Published: Mon, 16 Oct 2017

Social Media and how it changes the world

Introduction

What is social media? If you are or have been a user of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Youtube or any other similar stuffs like that, congratulations, you are a part of the social media. Yes, those mentioned above are social media. There are many different definitions given to what is social media however, all of the definitions given are similar to each other and all of them defined social media as a tool, a website or an application for users to create and share contents or to participate in social networking. It is like using Instagram, where you can create contents by capturing photos or recording video clips and sharing them by posting the photos or video clips you have just captured or recorded. As for social networking, in Instagram, users are able to leave comments and also leave a “like” for the contents posted if they think it is good or worthy or even if they just like it without any particular reasons. Social media has evolved throughout the years and the number of users has increased drastically compared to when it just started. Social media has changed the world in many ways.

Method of Literature Selection

I have conducted an electronic database search through Tunku Abdul Rahman University College’s digital library. I have utilized the ACM Digital Library. The keywords used in the online database include social media, charity and fund raising. I have also conducted searches on the Measuring Media-based Social Interactions Provided by Smartphone Applications in Social Networks archive, Rethinking Measurements Of Social Media Use By Charities: A Mixed Methods Approach archive and Social Networked Media: Advances and Trends archive. I have chosen only the articles that were published within 5 years ago. The three articles which I have chosen to reference on were selected based on the relevancy to the topic of the essay.

Connecting with people, raise funds like no other

Social media is vastly used nowadays. The number of social media users increases so rapidly. The age of social media users gets younger and younger. Nobody really knows the real age of the youngest social media users. Social media is so widely used that any information including articles, videos, photos and etc. can be quickly transmitted to the world through the net. It is just a ‘share’ button away from letting people know what you have done today, letting people know about your opinion towards something, in short, it is just a button away from letting people know about your life and thoughts. Due to that, social media is used for various things. It is not only used just for social, it is also being used for business, advertising, as a customer relation management tool, global exposures, as an online meeting space, for entertainment purposes, educational purposes, fund raising, online shopping space, a space where people can get feedback about things, places, services, experience and food. The usage of social media is unlimited. It can do so many things that if I were to list them all out here, it would be a never-ending list. Users can do so much just by using a social media. A plus point for social media is that, it is free most of the time. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogspot, WordPress, Tumblr, Youtube, Vine, Myspace, ChurpChurp, Schoology, Wechat, Whatsapp, Foursquare, Waze, Line, Friendster, Pinterest and etc. are all free to use. All of those mentioned above are free of charge. No fees are needed for registration. That is one of the main reasons why everyone chooses to use social media as it is free unless of course if anyone wants a premium or a special service, there would be an amount of fee being charged upon them depending on different social media. Although there are so many things social media can do, I am just going to focus on one thing that social media could do which is to help promote fund raising campaigns or activities. According to Ebroul Izquierdo, internet has brought a great impact to our modern life. Human is a social animal. This is being reflected in the internet age too. Since the birth of online communication system, social network has become the most crucial thing in life. Social networking has become a must and a habit in mankind nowadays. As mentioned by Alan Keller Gomes and Maria da Graça Campos Pimentel, there are so many different applications for smartphones that allow users to connect to the social network or media even when they have only their smartphones in hands. Nowadays, it is rare to spot people without a smartphone that can let them connect to all kinds of social networks to connect to their friends online. As I was saying, social media helps a lot in raising funds nowadays. As mentioned by Christopher Phethean, Thanassis Tiropanis and Lisa Harris, social media services are being used to help and operate charities. The reasons why social media services are used continuously until today is because first and foremost, the low cost and unique opportunities that they are able to provide us and not just that, social media services too provide us with easily targeted and viral marketing that are unbelievably quick and very eye opening. It is something that we have never seen before to this scale. So, instead of the traditional way of raising funds which are maybe going around to ask for it which most of the time would not work as people like myself would think that it is a scam or advertising about it using banners, radios or television which people might ignore since we would still need to go to certain places to do certain charities which would be really troublesome, fund raising has revolutionized into something which we would need to just maybe leave a like or a comment or maybe just a view to do a charity. For example, they would have an agreement that the charity video can raise fund of 1 dollar for every 500 views which means if that video has 300,000 views, the fund raised would be 600 dollars. This has been done by many famous Youtubers such as the most subscribed for now on Youtube, Pewdiepie, a gamer who records himself play games as an entertainment for us viewers, has done this kind of charity fund raising to raise fund to fight against water crisis and Michelle Phan, a makeup artist who teaches viewers especially girls on how to apply makeup, has also done this kind of charity fund raising as well but hers was to raise fund to help the victims of human trafficking to rebuild their lives. The examples mentioned are both using videos to raise funds, some other people would use a Facebook post or an Instagram post or even a blog post to raise funds. In my opinion, social media being used as a fund raising tool is by far the best way as it is the easiest and the most convenient way to raise fund as users would only have to click ‘like’ or type a few words in the comment box to leave a comment or repost a post or other ways which involve mostly just clicking about to do a charity. There is no need for us to drop by a center just to do a charity anymore. It is also the fastest way to raise fund as well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social media has changed the world in many ways and one of it is that it has revolutionized fund raising for charities into something easier and more convenient to be participated by users. Everybody can now do a good deed and participate in charities at home without the need to go out anymore. Even lazy people like me are able to help others just by clicking a button.